As marcomms pros continue to navigate TikTok content opportunities, we’ve learned it’s about mastering an art, and not so much an algorithm, like on other platforms. Gheya Boulware, founder of Social First Solutions, highlights three ways to get better at the content game, using the TikTok successes of cult-favorite beauty brands as examples.
Social First Solutions
Beauty brands have mastered the art of grabbing attention from their audiences through entertainment. Now ranking above other social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, TikTok serves as the top-of-funnel marketing strategy for industry players to get brand awareness. The platform has never been a place for the ordinary, but instead for unique individuals to create care-free and unfiltered content that builds authenticity across the app.
Whether you’re a beauty brand specializing in skincare, hair care or cosmetics, there are a variety of ways to approach your potential buyers with organic and relatable content. Here are three key marketing takeaways from leading beauty brands e.l.f. Cosmetics, Fenty Beauty and Rare Beauty that have tapped into the popular trends coveted by the many users on the platform.
1.Tap into the latest TikTok trends and sounds
Elf Cosmetics, known for its affordable, 100-percent vegan and cruelty free products, has a platform of 500,000 thousand followers and has accumulated over 11 million likes from beauty lovers on TikTok. Most recently, the brand introduced its ‘Elf Halo Glow Liquid Filter,’ a complexion booster that features skin-loving ingredients, across the platform – building a lot of anticipation and hype around its launch. Elf utilized the trending sound “Tell me something that will piss me off,” which helped to double their engagement and bring relatability to their audience as a result. The key lesson here is to master the art of entertaining and create authentic content that is native to the platform.
Oftentimes, beauty brands make the grave mistake of cross-posting their heavily filtered and image-worthy instagram content to TikTok believing it will resonate. The platform consists of much younger and older audiences seeking less-polished yet care-free and fun short form videos on their for-you-pages. I believe that both small and big beauty companies will continue to see their best engagement when they’re prioritizing the tools, visual trends and sounds on TikTok. To keep up with this, it’ll take strategy and cultural understanding to build relevance amongst individuals using the app.
2. Align your brand with the right content creators
With a cult following of 1.3 million followers, Fenty Beauty continues to rise and be a game-changing brand that promotes beauty, confidence, diversity and inclusivity across all of their social media platforms. With the brand dropping products almost every other month, they fully know what it takes to create excitement amongst their customers on a platform like TikTok.
Their most recent repost included content creator Aditya Madiraju, who specializes in makeup and skincare using Fenty ‘Match Stix’ to color correct, contour and highlight his face. Not only was it their most engaged post for the past month, but it embodies representation of male content creators who are not afraid to share their routines in a female-dominated industry.
Although content creators and influencers have always been the essential strategy of most beauty brands building credibility, there is significance in partnering with the right personalities that mirror your brand values and individuals that are a true reflection of your customers. In addition to this, reposting user-generated content from the platform often signals the type of content creators your brand would like to work with in the future. Regardless of the content creator’s follower size, what matters most would be their ability to show up with relatable content and engage audiences.
3. Build community and conversations around campaign hashtags
If there’s ever been a time to build a brand based on inner beauty, it’s now. Rare Beauty has set the bar for women to accept their imperfections and embrace what makes them unique. With their TikTok following being close to one million, they have kept their clean beauty message consistent. In July, the brand launched its ‘#UseKindWords’ Collection, making a larger social impact in the beauty space. The collection features the Kind Words Matte Lipstick and Lip Liner in a diverse variety of blush and neutral shades to compliment the skintones of all women. Leading up to its launch, founder and CEO Selena Gomez used her influence to introduce the collection through an event experience and shared TikTok videos interacting with her fans.
On the day of the release, Rare Beauty hosted a 10-hour ‘comment-a-thon’ on the platform encouraging the audience to speak nothing but kind words, creating buzz and spreading positivity across social media. The campaign’s hashtag generated over 25 million views on TikTok, which has built up tons of user generated content and a closer connection with customers. The marketing method is most common for larger beauty brands that want to bring awareness to a cause, product or activate a challenge for users to participate in. TikTok is now becoming an SEO-friendly search engine for users to find their favorite brands and creators, which is why it is becoming more relevant for brands to use trending hashtags or curate their own.
